The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-06-15
A Mysterious Stone Fort.
From the Nashville American.

From the Nashville AmericGn.
There is nothing in Tennessee, or in the
South, whose antiquity is so mysterious ard
entirely beyond the domain of decent specu-
latlon as the old stone fort, which is about a
mile and a half below the town of Manches-
ter. The two prongs of Duck river come
within, say, 200 yards of each other, and
then widen out, making territory of per-
haps 600 acres in the forks of the river, and
below the Narrows. AT the Narrows the
fort commences by stone wall, now COW
cred with earth, and there the walls are
built along the banks of both rivers down
10 point where "a canal had been cut, from
one river to the other; there wall is made
from one river to the other, perhaps quar-
Ter OF mile. On the outside of this wall is
a hollow, and in this hollow is the sign of
the canal or cut, evidently intended to pro-
tect the fort by both the wall and the canal.
From the upper to the lower wall at places
there are high bluffs ON both rivers.
W hereVer this -precipitous--is found
there is no wall, but wherever there is no
natural barrier the wall is built The en-
trance to the fort was at the upper end, and
the gatewayS show that the builders were
doing their work intelligently. The en-
trance is by narrow pass way, with walls
ON either side and offsets SO as to prevent the
enemy on the outside from having a direct
entrance Tor themselves, and so us to protect
those on the inside from missiles from the
outside. The fort contains a acres, and is,
or was when the writer first saw il, heavily
timhered, many of the trees of large size
growing on top of the walls.
Col Sam Murray, who settled there
about 1908, cut one of the trees from the
top of the wall and found it to be about 500
years old, One mile up the river from the
fort is an immense mound-the largest one
perhaps in the country-making it probable
that the fort was built by the mound build
ers. Beyond this nobody knows anything
about it. Col. Murray, who was man of
high intelligence, claimed to have conferred
with the Indians of different tribes, but none
of them could give him any account of it,
either by tradition or otherwise. This
fort is one, of the many evidences that in
this country, at some remote period, there
was race of people of more stability and
intelligence than the rowing Indians which
the first settlers found.
From the time of the first settlement of
the country there were ghost stories CON
nected with the old stone fort, which about
1884 eliminated i'll "A most remarkable epis-
ode. In 1888 six gentlemen, men of high
standing, who lived in Murfreesboro,
went out in the neigbborhood of the old fort
to have fox hunt The country was thinly
settled, and there were many deer. After
having camped out for several days one
night they saw strange sights, which caused
them to leave next day. They were not
communicative, but the story got out, and
was much talked of. The next fall these
same six gentlemen, with nine others, went
back and camped upon the same spot. IL
was said that they were quite anxious to
see the the same sights that had been seen
before. But week passed, and they saw
nothing, though they were quite successful
in killing deer.
At the end of about week a man named
Latimer got two small boys in the neiChbor-
hood and fixing up dumb bull went out to
see how they would stand strange noise.
1t was in the fall, a frosty night; the hun
tiers had a big fire and were in great glee.
For three hours the dumb bull was made
TO do work from different points in the
woods at a safe distance AT first the hun
ters were disposed TO laugh, then they got
quiet, finally they commenced shooting.
Many guns were fired. This was kept up
until the man and two boys left which was
about midnight Between midnight and
day the whole fifteen men left the camp,
leaving their meat and other things, and
went to farmhouse, the house where the
two boys who had been in the mischief were
sleeping. Next morning the hunters told
wonderful stories about what they saw,
how il came close up to the fire, and how
impervious it was to their bullets, how 1t
changed about from an animal to a woman
and what it would say. The two boys were
as still as mice, for they had stolen off from
their father by the persuasion Of Latimer,
who was himself hunter and wanted to
drive these hunters away.
The fifteen men left that morning and
went back to Murfreesboro to verify and
make good the ghost story of the year before.
The story got into the newspapers and was
the biggest sensation that had tnrned up for
many years. But it got out that u hunter
and two boys had scared them away. This
was denied, and the ghost theory was main
tanned with heroic verify One of the gen
tlemen, Jack Fletcher, was often member
of the Legislature afterward, but this ghost
story always stuck TO him. Another one of
them, Len Sims, was a member of Congress
from Missouri and was war Democrat in
1S47. After making war speech, a Wing
who was not for the war told the Tennessee
ghost story with much coloring on Sims. 1t
was said to modify his intense war spirit
very much.
This knighthood service in the land of
ghosts took place SO years ago. All the
participants are dead but one of the boys
who lives to write this story and to verify
it's truth.